rjw242

There's not a whole lot you can do at this point, but the plus side to that is there's not much you can do to "muck it up" either. Just talk to an agent as soon as you can. If you do have to stay in ORD, it's not the end of the world (most of us have been there at one point or another). Good luck

chinafish

My app is still showing a 7:20 on time departure for AA46 but flight aware is showing 7:45... Sigh.... We're arriving at a gate so I'll be mad dashing to AC!

dkc192

Might be too late, but the later BA flight (BA296) is showing J5 and departing in 60 mins.

dkc192

Alternatively, I'm not sure what OP's final destination is, but if s/he didn't make it onto AA98, AA54 to MAN is showing J2 Y7 and departing in two hours (at 9:40). One could ask to be rerouted to MAN if all the LHR flights are full/impossible and getting to the UK tomorrow morning is a priority.

SpammersAreScum

LukasVIE called it: AA46 is now showing a 10:06 departure! Hopefully AA did not give OP a hard time and his bag is now duly checked in. Or maybe we're not hearing any updates because OP is boarding the BA flight as we type?

chinafish

Drama!

I got off the plane, waited for my little roller suitcase, ran to the lounge, who confirmed that I won't make my flight. Best bet was to go to claim my bag, go to check in counter and rebook.

So I did that (that was an extra workout hauling the bags around and dodging people). Got to the desk. Who confirmed that I won't get on my original flight AA46. The later flight AA98 has no seats. And BA296 check in was closing at that moment and I won't be able to make it to the BA check in which is in a different terminal.

So as I was despairing on what to do, my app showed that AA46 has been delayed to 9:50pm instead of three original 7:20pm departure time.

The check in agent called the gate who reopened the flight to check me in.

So I am on my original flight, although delayed by 2.5 hours, but I have a boarding pass and a seat. I'm now inside the H/K AC calming down my poor nerves with... An artichoke soup...

I'm going home to all my babies!!! Thank you all once again!!

Never have I been:
- so excited about a plane taking off when we were finally in the air at RIC
- and so excited about a flight getting delayed when it popped up on my app that AA46 was delayed and the check in agent and gate agent helped me to let me check my bag on.

dkc192

Wonderful news! Safe travels and enjoy the time with your family.

chinafish

The agent at check in had been very surprised that the agent at RIC refused to check my bag through.

Maybe I should have kicked up a fuss. It would have reduced a lot of stress for me.

I'm now still on the same flight regardless so I'm a happy bunny. But I'm definitely sending some feedback after the trip. It'll probably just go into the ether and nobody will look at it but I'll still send it.

rjw242

I'd keep it short and focus on the refusal to through-check your bag, which is a crystal-clear violation of policy. If you're lucky it might result in a memo getting sent to the RIC station or something like that.

SpammersAreScum

Thank God for accommodating agents.

Congratulations.

(AA 46 has currently slipped again to 10:25. Delayed 3 hrs and counting.)

chinafish

I'm now on board. Not in my original seat but still in J. 14J to be precise so I still got my window seat. Looks like they had deplaned before as they said "Welcome on board again."

Phew.

chinafish

Just out of interest, where are you seeing this? My app and flight aware are still showing 2150 departure.

ThreeJulietTango

That's what it says on AA.com, but in practice it's based on the current ETD.

That would only be correct if you were connecting to a non-AA flight on non-oneworld stock, in which case AA will not offer misconnect protection. I'm not sure if this also applies when it's an AA flight; I'll look into it.

Agreed. Definitely complain about the agent at RIC, but for best results don't do it like the poster who later made a game out of their complaint.

rjw242

Really good to know. Thanks!

SpammersAreScum

Very odd. FlightAware still shows me 10:25 CDT for AA46 departure. I've force reloaded the page, to make sure I'm not seeing cached data.

Update: And now it says 9:49.